Recently I wrote an
article regarding illegal immigration. (That article's premise was
that our government had decades ago understood that our birth rate
was far too low to provide enough workers in the future to pay the
taxes necessary for the growing needs of an aging population"and
thus the decision for the past several decades to unofficially allow
illegal immigration. I received a lot of feedback from readers that
inspired me to write this follow-up article. Many readers expressed
surprise that the decades old birth rate decline in our country
(similar to almost every other developed nation) was likely the
underlying cause of our federal government's acceptance and tacit
approval of illegal immigration. Many had been and remain baffled by
our federal government's seeming inability to address and
effectively fix this serious problem. Having a logical cause helped
many to understand that the lack of effective immigration policies
was likely not just accidental. This unofficial policy (more likely
official but unacknowledged) of allowing immigrants to enter across
barely guarded borders has had many serious side effects.

For example, our
national media has continually used this issue to increase readership
and viewership by running stories and articles designed to pit the
two major political parties and their followers against one another.
While the media did not create the problems, they certainly have
exacerbated the debate by not asking the "why" question of
traditional journalism. This debate has centered on the leadership
from the left wanting to support the "illegal's" for
humanitarian purposes (when in truth they see likely them as future
Democrats), while the leadership for the right has focused on the
"illegality" of entry (because they fear having more Democrats).
Our leaders of both parties have once again demonstrated that doing
the right thing the right way for the right reasons for all of us is
secondary in importance to power and control. And, why haven't they
told us"because they don't think we are smart enough to
understand. This should be offensive and repulsive to most Americans.

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We have built walls,
and added to our Border Patrol staffs"but then tied their hands
with policies that force them to return captured illegal's back at
the border only to allow them to almost immediately return to try
again. Or we build the walls but appear to have forgotten to add
razor wire at the tops. Perhaps we should have provided ladders!

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Particularly scary and
dangerous is that we have set up a system of barely controlled
borders that also provides an easy venue for terrorists to enter our
country during one of the most threatening eras we have ever faced.

Some have expressed the
fear that our benign neglect of the borders has also provided easy
access to traffickers in illicit drugs and humans.

What about the folks
who actually live in close proximity to these almost 2,000 miles of
borders? They live in a virtual war zone where they are afraid to
even go out of their homes without firearms. Look at the resulting
death rates in the Mexican border towns caused by the drug cartels
fighting for control of access to these easy entry points for their
illicit poisons into our country. What about all the human beings
who, out of sheer economic desperation, have left their homelands
because they perceive the risks of illegal immigration to be less
than those of staying home where their prospects are so poor? What
about the hundreds or likely thousands who have died on the journey?
Our government tacitly allows them to make this dangerous journey,
tacitly allows them to find employment, and then with our media
enhanced political debate we force them to live lives of desperation
in which they fear that at any moment they will be forced out of this
country".even though they may have lived here for many years, may
be property owners, and even have children here who are now legal
citizens. What about the taxes which sometimes are not collected from
either the employers or these illegal workers because of under the
table cash payments of wages? What about the tons of debris and waste
that have been left behind by literally millions of immigrants as
they enter our country. Why hasn't our media shown this
environmental disaster? This lack of action by our leaders in
Washington has forced states like Arizona to take action out of sheer
desperation. Many local law enforcement agencies have launched 287G
programs to help protect local communities from the side-effects of
the unenforced federal immigration laws. The solutions seem very
straightforward and simple. However, it will require that our leaders
actually unify to make the decision to fix this major problem. Simply
put, they need to stop worrying about being a Republican or Democrat
and start truly being Americans! This cannot be a partisan issue.
Unfortunately our leaders have repeatedly demonstrated a lack of
willingness to collaborate on much of anything.

The suggested first,
and most important, step is to immediately really
close down the border between the U.S. and Mexico which seems to be
the main problem area. If we really do have the best military forces
in the world don't you think that we should be able protect our own
borders?

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Next, begin formal and
mandatory registration of all the illegal's who are already here
through a "guest worker" program that would be rigidly enforced.
The only path to any possibility for future citizenship would be
through this mandatory program. Failure to be registered would result
in immediate expulsion with no chance of future acceptance. We also
have to institute severe penalties for any employer who hires an
unregistered worker. The final step would be to revise our current
legal immigration system to allow rational control of access to our
great country in a manner that truly reflects our nation's future
work force needs and other national requirements. "We the people"
have every reason to be severely disappointed in our elected
officials and "we" need to do something about it. As the
newscaster in the movie Network said many years ago"we should all
open our windows and start shouting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm
not going to take it anymore"! That unfortunately will only serve
to lower one's blood pressure. I believe that the only effective
actions we can take are to let our future votes show just how mad we
really are.

Mike spent most of his working career in a variety of managerial roles in five different industries for two employers over a 38 year career. He now writes a political Op-Ed column for the Hendersonville, NC Times-News, and displays his favorites at (more...)